All Out for DCPresident Bush sneaked in to Iraq Labor Day. It was sort of on his
way to the APEC meeting in Sydney. This time he chose to visit the base Marines
call Camp Cupcake, in Anbar, an area he hailed as a model of progress in
pacifying the country through the “surge.” On Thursday four Marines were killed
in this exemplary province.

Arriving in Australia Bush told that country’s deputy
prime minister that “we’re kicking ass” in Iraq. He went on to announce it was
likely that the 168,000 U.S. troop force in Iraq could be reduced, perhaps by
spring. That’s a safe bet. The extended 15-month tours that enabled the surge
will start expiring in April–and there is no one to replace them. The Army has
been offering 20,000 dollar “sign and ship” bonuses to new recruits but even
this pot sweetener is not expected to do more than meet attrition–if that.
Another extension of tour, or further reduction of respite between tours, is
politically unthinkable.

Gordon Brown remains faithful to Tony Blair’s
political support of the Bush war but British troops effectively declared
Basra an open city and withdrew to the vicinity of the airport.

When the congressional Democrats voted in the spring to
fully fund the surge with no strings attached they assured us the real showdown
would come in September. General David Petraeus is scheduled to give the
long awaited report to congress on Monday.

He literally wrote the book on the Army’s
counter-insurgency doctrine–based on his doctoral dissertation on the lessons of
the Vietnam war. With his double-breasted display of medals to go along with his
PhD, he has become a political rock star, like Colin Powell and Alan Greenspan
rolled in to one. Congress and the media will breathlessly await his every
well-modulated word.

Paul Krugman, sequestered by the New York Times
web site in its pay-for-view section, takes a look at this brass hat’s
credibility. He reminds us of some past Petraeus pronouncements. During his
commander-in-chief’s 2004 reelection campaign the general said,

“there has been progress in the effort to enable Iraqis
to shoulder more of the load for their own security.”

The following year things were even better,

“there has been enormous progress with the Iraqi
security forces.”

Krugman says,

“But now two more years have passed, and the
independent commission of retired military officers appointed by Congress to
assess Iraqi security forces has recommended that the national police force,
which is riddled with corruption and sectarian influence, be disbanded, while
Iraqi military forces ‘will be unable to fulfill their essential security
responsibilities independently over the next 12-18 months.’”

Since Krugman’s column yet another report, just
released today, takes an even longer term view. With a name straight out of
Orwell, the U.S. Institute of Peace–an unsavory collection of former
ambassadors, CIA analysts and other interventionist insiders who ran the
Baker-Hamilton commission–projects a fifty percent reduction in U.S. forces in
three years, total withdrawal perhaps in five years.

Krugman concludes right on the money,

“Finally, the public hates this war and wants to see it
ended. Voters are exasperated with the Democrats, not because they think
Congressional leaders are too liberal, but because they don’t see Congress doing
anything to stop the war.”

The Democrats want the war issue to carry them in to
the White House next year. The leadership of the Republicans don’t want to be
seen as the ones that surrendered Iraq. Petraeus will find new, imaginative but
authoritative ways of urging stay the course, making both sides happy for now.

Meanwhile, during the election cycle, good people
continue to die, Iraq sinks further in to poverty and despair, GIs come home
physically and emotionally scarred, and three billion dollars a week of our
taxes is squandered on this unjust war.

It’s time once again to send a message to the
politicians that we’re not as stupid or apathetic as they apparently think.
Being simple minded, hard working folks, we are not interested in their nuances,
their carefully crafted compromises, their goals and benchmarks. We want this
war ended now. We want every last GI brought home now. We don’t understand or
accept anything else.

A good opportunity to get this point across is the
March On Washington to End the War Now, next Saturday, September 15. Initiated
by the ANSWER coalition, this action has been endorsed by US Labor Against the
War, Code Pink, World Won’t Wait, Veterans for Peace, and others. The march will
be headed by Iraq Veterans Against the War. I urge all readers in the eastern
part of the U.S. to join this timely response to the Petraeus report and the do
nothing congress.

And On the Oil FrontOne of the top benchmarks set for the Iraqi government by both Bush
and the Democrats is prompt passage of a new oil law. This legislation would
effectively turn over control of Iraq’s major resource to Big Oil. While there
is widespread opposition to the law among the Iraqi peoples only the unions are
organizing an effective fight.

Early last week the Anti-Oil Law Front carried out a
bold mass demonstration in Baghdad in the face of intimidation by both U.S.
troops and Iraqi police. Yesterday the Federation of Worker Councils and Unions
of Iraq held a conference in Basra to assess the struggle against the draft oil
law. Among the conference speakers were Subhi al-Badri, president of the
Anti-Oil Law Front; Hassan Juma; president of Iraqi Federation of South Oil
Unions (IFOU); Ali Abbas; Chairman of the Federation of Worker Councils and
Unions in Basra; and Mufeed Haider; chairman of Iraq Freedom Congress in Basra.
The gathering adopted resolutions calling for more demonstrations, sit-ins and
strikes to stop this rip-off. Full coverage of the proceedings will be aired on
the Sana TV satellite network.

The Wage War Front
Wage War was the title of an excellent pre-strike article by Jonathan
Kaminsky in City Pages explaining the monetary issues that led to 3500
AFSCME members at the University of Minnesota hitting the bricks last Wednesday.

The state legislature budgeted funds to allow the U to
grant 3.25 percent wage increases to the clerical, technical, and health care
workers now on the picket line. Now that’s not exactly a princely sum for
workers who average 34,000 a year. It doesn’t compare favorably to the recent
2-year contract the University president negotiated for himself with ten percent
the first year, 7.5 percent the second. Over the past four years his salary has
grown from 100,000 to 450,000 a year.

But the administration is trying to chisel even on this
miserly standard granted by the politicians in St Paul. They demand to count
progression step raises, that workers earn with experience until they get to the
top pay of their classification, as part of the general wage increase. That has
the effect of reducing the average raise to 2.25 percent–well below the
inflation rate.

Susan Kang, a graduate student writing in the campus
daily, summed up the likely union busting motivation for U management provoking
this strike,

“What the University is trying to do, however, is to
make these integral jobs at the University more like the bad jobs I held as an
18-year-old, and not the kind of good job that can sustain an adult with
mortgages, family and other long-term responsibilities...

“The AFSCME workers are not just fighting to win back
well-deserved pay increases to fight back effects of inflation on their wages,
they are fighting a larger fight about what sort of jobs this University
provides. Do we want a university that provides living wages that can sustain
long-term employees, their families and this community? Or do we want
high-turnover jobs where employees feel underpaid, undervalued and un-invested
in their work?”

The striking unions, and their support committee, have
won significant student support for their battle. More than a hundred student
protesters peacefully intruded on the normally routine meeting of the University
Regents. The cops were called, five were arrested as both the eminent Regents
and the rest of the audience hastily left the scene.

Both AFL-CIO and Change to Win unions have been
prominently represented at rallies and on the picket line as well.

The strikers have also brought prominent politicians in
for support. John Edward’s wife, Elizabeth, spoke at a campus strike rally as
did Senate candidate, and Saturday Night Live alumnus, Al Franken.

To learn more about this important battle, and what you
can do to promote solidarity, visit these web sites:

New CNA Victory
The California Nurses Association won another important contract settlement
covering 3500 RNs at nine southern California Catholic Healthcare West
hospitals. Beating back employer demands for take-aways in healthcare, the union
secured raises ranging from 16 to 21 percent over two years. They also succeeded
in inserting patient/nurse ratios into the agreement. CNA’s goal is to fold this
settlement into a master contract ultimately covering 10,000 CHW nurses
throughout the state. CNA is holding their convention starting tomorrow. They
will have much to be proud of but we don’t expect they will be content to rest
on their laurels. We wish them well.